


all the stars are going out but we're still burning

by UnluckiestFridays



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Blood, Frenemies, Friendship, Gen, Genocide, Graphic Description of Corpses, Murder, Possibly thrissy, Reunions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-04-23 23:19:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19161055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnluckiestFridays/pseuds/UnluckiestFridays
Summary: The Doctor hadn't seen her since the Mondasian ship, where she left him to die. Refused to stand with him. But now, her oldest friend in the universe is back, and wants her attention. (Though she may be going about it in the wrong way).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This one's going to be heavy on the blood-shed so just a pre-warning for that, in case the tags didn't warn you enough.
> 
> And it might be Thrissy, though I'm still deciding so I've just put it to gen for now.

The Doctor sat on the step near the console, one foot tapping mindlessly on the metal of the floor. Between her index and thumbs, she held a ring which she twirled round and round as if she hadn't seen it and memorised every detail already. She thought she'd lost it when she regenerated, what with her hands now being a lot smaller now, but the ring had recently turned up on the side in the kitchen when she'd been making a cuppa and she'd quickly pocketed it when she'd heard her fam approaching.

Now, it was all she could think about. She could practically feel it burning her side from inside her pocket so she'd taken it out. She wasn't sure how long she'd been staring at the wedding band, but it must have been a long time now because she could hear the voice of her friend Graham complaining about tiredness. Her friends had been asleep, but it must have been morning now (or as close as it could get inside the vortex).

Quickly shoving the ring back inside her pocket, the Doctor jumped up from the steps and took her position at the console ready for her friends.

"Best kip I've had in a while, and I'm still tired," Graham muttered to himself as he entered the console room, Ryan trailing behind him. The Doctor smiled at him.

"Sleep alright?" The Doctor asked, moving around the console to join them on the other side.

"Yeah, good, thanks," Ryan nodded.

"Yeah, might go get s cuppa, though. Wake meself up a bit before any adventures," Graham decided. 

"Course! Kitchen should be down that way," the Doctor said, pointing down a corridor to the left. 

"That way? But weren't it down the other way yesterday?" 

"It was, but it's moved so now it's down there," the Doctor smiled sheepishly.

"Right, of course," Graham shook his head fondly and shuffled down the corridor in search of the kitchen.

"Mornin'," Yaz announced, entering the console room. 

"Oh, morning, Yaz," the Doctor grinned, happy to see the final member of the team was up. That meant they could take off soon for wherever the Old Girl had planned for the day. "Sleep alright?"

"Yeah, fine, but there were some weird noises comin' from down the corridor at one point," Yaz trailed off, giving the Doctor a pointed look.

"What? Don't look at me, it was probably Bouncy," the Doctor defended herself.

"Bouncy?" Ryan repeated.

"You know what, it don't even matter. I slept alright, thanks, Doctor," Yaz backtracked and took a seat against one of the pillars.

The Doctor casually turned a knob on the console then whirled around to face her friends.

"So, where to today, then, fam?" She asked excitedly.

"How about a planet?" Ryan suggested. 

"Yeah, but one where we won't almost get killed," joked Yaz.

"A planet? I can do that, I know loads of planets," the Doctor said and rushed to the monitor where she started looking for a planet she knew her friends would enjoy.

Around a minute later with the Doctor rambling on and Ryan and Yaz barely keeping up, Graham reentered the console room, four cups of tea balanced skillfully in his hands. He handed one to Ryan, one to the Doctor, and then gave one the last two to Yaz.

"There you are, love," he said, "thought you might be here by the time I got back, so I made you a cuppa."

"Cheers, Graham, you're a star," Yaz smiled and stood up with her cup of tea.

"Mhm!" The Doctor agreed around her mug.

"So, where we off to today?" Graham asked, obviously feeling more awake than he had a moment ago.

The Doctor placed her mug down on the console and spun around, manic glee in her eyes, "I know of the perfect planet! You'll love it, I promise!"

"What's it called?" Ryan asked.

"It's called the Planet of the Pink Waterfalls," the Doctor said.

"And let me guess," Graham smiled, "it's got pink waterfalls?"

"Well, technically they're not actually pink, it's all to do with the light and the-" the Doctor stopped at the unimpressed looks on her friends' faces, "yes, it's got pink waterfalls."

Her friends chuckled at her behaviour and Graham resorted to downing the rest of his tea, secretly very excited to see the pink waterfalls. After all, it wasn't very often with the Doctor that you actually got to see something nice rather than the razor-sharp teeth of some alien trying to kill you.

When Graham had finished his tea, he made a satisfactory sound and raised his mug with a smile to a grinning Doctor. 

"You ready then, you lot?" The Doctor asked impatiently, looking at Ryan and Yaz.

The pair eyed their unfinished drinks and shrugged.

"Yeah, ready," Ryan said. 

"Ready," Yaz added.

Smile brightening, the Doctor grabbed the lever and pulled it down, sending them spinning through the vortex to their destination.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING IN THIS CHAPTER FOR GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF CORPSES AND POSSIBLE INJURIES. AND I DO PUT EMPHASIS ON GRAPHIC. DON'T IGNORE THIS AND THEN COMPLAIN IN THE COMMENTS BECAUSE I HAVE WARNED YOU.
> 
> Thank you :P

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know the first chapter was really short, but I actually didn't mean to post it when I did. I meant to save it, but ended up posting instead and didn't have time to remove it because I was late for college. Hopefully this chapter will make up for the shortness of the first chapter.

With a wheeze and a groan, the TARDIS landed at her destination.

The Doctor pulled back from the console with a smile and spun around to see her friends. They peeled themselves off of the console and columns, looking wary.

"Right! Are you ready?" She asked them, absently pulling the monitor round to face her.

"As ready as I'll ever be, I suppose," Graham joked.

"Let's get a shift on, then."

Pocketing her sonic, the Doctor stepped away from the console and hurried down to the doors. She pulled them both open and stood in the doorway

"I don't..." the Doctor started, unsure what to say.

"Oh, my God," Yaz commented from just behind the Doctor.

"What happened here?" The Doctor asked quietly as she stepped out of the TARDIS onto the dry, burnt grass of the planet they'd landed on.

Her friends followed her out hesitantly, looking around the war one they were on. The entire planet seemed devoid of any signs of life. In the distance, trees, once alive and thriving, were black and charred, holding onto their frail branches as well as they could. Buildings had been toppled and now lay on the ground as rubble and debris. The sky was grey, the pale blue hidden behind thick clouds of smoke and ash.

"Doc, what is this?" Graham asked, coughing against the smell of burning wood.

"I don't know," the Doctor admitted, "it wasn't like this when I last visited. I don't know what happened."

"Woah!" Ryan exclaimed suddenly.

"What?" The Doctor worried, whirling around to face him. "What is it?"

"I think- I dunno, it was probably nothing," Ryan shook his head, lowering the hand he'd been pointing towards the distance where the fallen buildings were.

"Nothing is ever nothing," the Doctor said, earning a couple of raised eyebrows from Graham and Yaz. "What did you see?"

"I dunno, it was like some kind of shadow," Ryan slowly admitted, "it looked like a person. They were over there behind that wall."

He pointed his finger again towards a building with a half-fallen wall. The area around it was surrounded by debris and what had once been walls of buildings, only now broken and crushed beyond repair.

"What do you think it was, Doc? Think someone might've survived whatever happened here?" Graham, ever hopeful, asked.

"I'm not sure," the Doctor said, "but I guess we can find out."

"But, Doctor, what if it's not a survivor? What if it's the person who did all this in the first place?" Yaz asked, jogging a bit to keep up with the Doctor who'd already taken off.

"Well, I suppose we'll deal with that when we find them," the Doctor said, "I'll think of something."

Yaz looked like she wanted to argue, but simply closed her mouth and decided to focus on keeping up with the Doctor. 

The group of time travellers walked over the uneven, smoky terrain, their shoes getting caked in thick mud as they walked. Every so often there was a large puddle of some kind of liquid that they would avoid as it didn't look like any kind of water they'd ever seen.

They'd almost reached the building Ryan had pointed out when something became obvious to all of them. From where the TARDIS had parked, they hadn't really been able to spot them, but now they were closer to where the natives once lived.

As they cautiously stepped over some cracked bricks covered in soot, they saw the first body. The poor man's naturally pink-ish skin had taken on a pale shade, almost blue, but not quite. The right side of his head seemed to have been caved in, possibly from some kind of blunt object. Whoever had killed this man must have had a purpose in mind and they had followed it through.

Dry blood stained the debris he was lay on and one of his limbs had apparently been torn off. Whether by falling buildings or by whoever had caused all of the damage, it wasn't clear. All manner of foreign insects crawled in and out of the hole in his head. 

"Oh, my God," Yaz muttered from behind the Doctor who had turned away in horror and disgust. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

Ryan placed a hand on her shoulder and turned her away from the sight only to spot another body off to the left. This time it was one of a little boy, a picture of pure horror permanently painted on his pale face. 

All around them, across the literal battlefield, bodies were spread out. Men, women, and children lay prone across the debris, dry, crimson blood beneath each and every one of them. No one person had been left unharmed.

"Doc..." Graham started, but he was unsure of what to say. What could he say?

Instead of answering him or turning around and allowing them all to see the sight of her haunted expression, the Doctor took a deep breath, steeled herself and walked on, purposely ignoring the sight of the bodies. 

Reluctantly, her friends followed.

* * *

The group wandered the battle site that had once been a thriving, living city for almost half an hour. The further into the city they got, the more the bodies they increased in numbers. It took all of their collective willpower to not look at them. There was nothing they could do for them, except finding out who had taken their lives. 

Eventually, they came to the centre of what seemed to have once been some kind of town. In the middle of it was a lone water fountain still standing. There was no water coming from the centre of it and there were a few nicks here and there in the structure, but out of everything else, it still stood strong. 

The Doctor sighed and took a seat on the edge of it, putting her head in her hands and closing her eyes lest the tears fall. If they fell, she was worried they might not stop. 

She had been to the Planet of the Pink Waterfalls before. It had been beautiful. The people were kind, it was always sunny, the dual suns always bright in the blue sky and barely a cloud in sight. The city was always so full of life. People of all kinds of species loved to visit the planet, loved to relax by the Waterfalls. There was never any judgement between species, they all got along like they all belonged there. Well, she supposed they did, really. 

And now, now, it had been reduced to nothing but another smouldering planet in a galaxy far away that she hadn't been able to save. Had arrived too late to save. There was nothing she could do now, she couldn't cross her own personal timeline to save it. Once she had set foot on its soil, it had become a fixed point in time. 

Graham sat beside her and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, but the Doctor didn't lift her head. Yaz and Ryan occupied the space on the other side her. 

"Ain't there nothin' we can do?" He asked. She knew he already knew the answer. She'd already told him before. 

"No," she lifted her head, "we've already seen it, there's nothing we can do." 

"Aw, isn't that sweet?" A high pitched, distinctly Scottish voice rang out throughout the barren town. 

The Doctor quickly stood up, Graham's hand falling from her shoulder. 

"I know that voice," the Doctor muttered, taking out her sonic screwdriver and looking around the town with wide eyes. 

"Oh, you remember me then? I'm flattered," the voice came from the Doctor's right so she turned, only to find no one there. 

"Show yourself, Missy! I'm not playing your games!" The Doctor shouted, rage bubbling up inside her. There was no need to look for the executioner anymore. She'd found her. 

"Oh, well that is a shame," Missy said and the Doctor could almost hear the pout in her voice. "I was hoping you'd let me play with your new pets. They look yummy."

"My friends are off-limits, Missy, you know that." 

"You were always such a buzzkill, dearest Doctor." 

There was a distinct shuffling from behind her in the rubble. The Doctor whirled around, sonic outstretched in her hand and ready. A figure shrouded in shadow revealed themself, looking nothing like the Doctor had expected to see. 

Missy's dress was dirty and tattered, torn at the hem and collar. Blood caked her corset and smeared her cheek, and as much as the Doctor didn't want to believe it, it was definitely hers. Her shoes were scuffed and the laces were undone. Her skin was ghostly and there were dark circles under her eyes. Her hair had fallen down from her usual pinup and the ends were singed. She looked exactly like the warzone she had created.

For anyone else, the Doctor might've thought it normal, but not for Missy. Her oldest friend never let herself look so run down when in the midst of chaos. Especially any chaos she herself had caused. 

"Doctor," a grin spread across Missy's face, smug and mocking. 


End file.
